College Football Betting: New Mexico at Arizona State

Added September 17, 2015 by Levi Watkins

Non-conference action between a couple of Southwestern schools with a disparate level of success on the football field. Arizona State has been pretty good in recent years and enters this contest on a 21-8 straight up run. New Mexico, on the other hand, has seemingly struggled forever on the football field and brings a record of 8-18 over the last three years into this contest. Both teams are 1-1 on the season. New Mexico opened the year with an easy win over Mississippi Valley State but lost by 19 at home to Tulsa as -6.5 point favorites. Arizona State lost their opener to Texas A&M before rebounding to beat Cal Poly last week. Some pointspread concern in that game, however, as the Sun Devils were installed as -35 point favorites but failed to cover in the 35-21 win.

The one thing that ASU’s win over Cal Poly did help the team was in their preparation for New Mexico’s triple option offense. The triple option can be very dangerous when its run effectively but it just doesn’t seem that New Mexico has the athletes at this point to make it work. For that reason, even having a familiarity with the tactics from the game against Cal Poly is a significant advantage for the Sun Devils. Working against the home team–they’ve got a much bigger game on deck against USC at home next Saturday. For that reason, it’s hard to see Arizona State really dropping ‘the hammer’ on the hapless Lobos even assuming that they’re capable of doing so.

New Mexico has been a decent pointspread play on the road in recent years–they’re 8-4 ATS away from Albuquerque during the last three seasons but have been a slow starting team with a 2-6 ATS mark in September. Arizona State has been a poor non-conference investment in that same timeframe going 3-7 ATS despite a 7-3 SU record. That’s even more significant here as it suggest a team that doesn’t really play their best against weaker opponents and that’s the situation they’re in here. We’ll take the generous points with the visiting Lobos and hope they can keep this one close.